27 Risking it all

"Listen up everyone, I don't want to give you false hopes, we can't win this game anymore they are way more stronger than I expected, in the games that I viewed they were probably even holding back, it's my fault for not doing more research about their new star player." Evans said with his face lowered.

"Now that this has come to this we will change our tactic, we can't score against them so our plan will be to minimize our losses, every team that went against them lost by 6 points or more so our only goal should be to not let them score more than 3 points in the second half." Coach Evans announced.

"Yes, sir." We all replied in one United voice, the coach was surprised to see us so fired up but just smiled and didn't question it anymore.

He then went on to give each of us special tasks we needed to complete in order to waste as much time as we can, every word he said made it more obvious that he completely lost hope in this game and only wished for us to not lose by too much and keep our pride as a big team.

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As soon as the second half began, Sae passed the ball back to one of their midfielders and immediately rushed toward us, we would usually stay back and keep our defense tight and solid but this time we all knew that we didn't have this luxury.

Even if the coach wanted us to play it safe and just waste time, deep down we all knew that it was impossible for us to them unless we risked it all today.

As soon as Sae made the pass back, Kevin who was our fastest player immediately rushed straight toward the player who had the ball, the midfielder was clearly taken aback and didn't expect such a fast and sudden pressing from us, after all this was the opposite of our play style for the first half.

The player who had the ball then rushed to pass the ball towards one of the other 2 midfielders in a hurry but it was easily intercepted by me with my trapping and agility such a task was pretty easy for me.

"Good job Jude!!" I could hear Ricardo yell from the opposite side of the field, as soon as the second half began both me and him agreed to each guard one of their midfielders while Kevin rushed straight towards the one who had the ball since he was the fastest in our team and would be able to put the more pressure on them.

Thanks to that we managed to take them by surprise and it was now time for us to play the way we know. After trapping the ball I dribbled past the midfielder who was close to me and passed the ball towards our right wing who was running next to me then rushed straight towards the middle of their defense.

We knew we couldn't allow ourselves to waste any single second so we gave it our all, both me, Ricardo and Kevin went straight towards the penalty area and got ready to receive a pass, but right as our right wing got ready to center the ball towards us, one of their midfielders came back to tackle him and foul him.

Luckily, before the referee could even signal the foul, our right wing stood back up in a very weird position and shot the ball towards us as hard as he could, even though he lost his balance the center was very well made, that was his special weapon after all.

I ran towards the place where the ball was most likely to drop while both Ricardo and Kevin were making fake runs to distract their defense. As soon as the ball reached my level, I jumped and trapped the ball with my chest.

"You're quite the annoying fucker." Suddenly I felt a strong force hit my ribs, luckily, I still managed to gain back my balance and barely trap the ball again with my left foot, I then looked back only to see that the person who stopped me was none other than Itoshi Sae. He came back to help in the defense as soon as he saw us turn the tables around.

He hit me with his shoulder in my ribs to stop me from shooting right after trapping it which was my initial plan, unfortunately, that worked exactly as he expected and my previous injury in my ribs started hurting once again.

"It was a nice try, but unfortunately that's where everything ends for you guys." He said in a cold voice before trying to tackle the ball away from my feet, I then rolled the ball back and pushed him away to stop his first tackle but I could feel that he would easily snatch it away from me at any moment.

"Isn't it funny to see the Ace striker being the last line of defense?" I mocked as I shot the ball as hard as I could, since I knew that I wouldn't be able to dribble past him or take it back from him after he take it from me then I should try to shoot it no matter what.

What I didn't expect was that even then he still managed to put his feet in front of the ball and try to block the shoot, unfortunately for him the ball only hit the tip of his feet and changed direction, when the ball switched direction it took everyone by surprise.

They couldn't do anything other than watch as the ball went straight toward the right side of the goal and went in without anyone being able to comprehend what happened.

"You did it!!!" Kevin rushed towards me and jumped on me while crying. "It really worked!" Ricardo high fived me and hugged me, I then went on to high five everyone one by one.

We all celebrated together even though we were still losing by 3-1 but right now it didn't matter to us, even the opposite team looked so down that any newcomer would think that we are actually the winners.

"I can't get mad at you guys for not listening to me if you keep always scoring hahahahaha good job kids." Even the coach congratulated us with a rare wide smile on his face before patting my back and asking us to go back to our positions.

I slowly walked towards the middle of the field to get back to my position but then suddenly started feeling more and more out of breath, at first I thought that it was just the fatigue downing on me but now even my mind started feeling extremely dizzy.

Without even realizing it I fell down on one knee, "Coach!!" That was the last thing I heard before my ears started buzzing and my hearing left me. It was my first time ever experiencing such a thing, even back when I was always sick and used to pass out randomly I've never experienced such a weird sensation.

My brain was too foggy for me to understand what was currently happening to me, I could only watch as everyone was moving around me hysterically, I could see them moving their lips but I wasn't able to understand any word that was said, it all sounded like gibberish to me, I didn't even feel any pain anymore, it was as if I actually was on a high.

I had a hard time moving my body or controlling my own movement so when the medical team took me away I simply let it all happen. At some point, I couldn't even make out my left and right anymore and simply decided to close my eyes to distract myself from what was happening around me.

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(Thanks to everyone for the support, I wasn't expecting to get so many PS and might actually have to change the goal from 30 to 50 or even more lmaooo, tho thanks to everyone I got back the motivation to write!)